all the gameplay and exploration sections run at a solid 60 fps on Ultra-everything

What hardware do you have? I have a i5 2400 with a GTX 770 card and 8 GB of ram. I am not seeing 60 FPS on Ultra everything at all. I have to knock shadows to Medium and turn off the MM something antialiasing while setting the other AA to low to get around 60 FPS in non open areas. In the Hinterlands I get about 30-40 while battles are going. I honestly thought my hardware would do better with the game.

Yeah, I need to amend my earlier statement. It turns out that my computer can run a steady 60 fps with Ultra-everything in areas which are not The Hinterlands. All the dense vegetation over such an enormous draw distance brings the framerate down to a steady 45 *after* the MSAA anti-aliasing is turned off, and Vegetation is ticked down to High.

I also got a bump in smoothness by disabling the camera motion blur. Previously, panning the camera at sub-60 framerates seemed jerky and, no matter how I set the Post-Processing setting, I could not perceive any motion blurring. The effect doesn't appear to be rendering at all. I finally followed these steps to disable motion blurring in the engine:

1) One of the most serious crashing problems has been traced to the "Game Contacts" menu -- basically the in-game friends list. Ubisoft recommends not adding anyone to this list, and deleting anyone who you might have already added.

2) Ubisoft found bugs in several types of city objects, causing them to trip characters up and interfere with free-running. They're fixing those, as well as optimizing the code to produce better framerates in a number of "edge cases."

3) A big fix was rolled out for the "Intitiates" companion app yesterday. I have no idea how successful it was, but the service is supposedly back up now.

This thread is the very definition of impatience, and is way too early for it to have any significance whatsoever. If you guys can just control yourself until the beginning of January (at which point even the latest releases should have at least one or two weeks of distance), maybe our "GOTY" vote will mean something too. As it is, this is just ridiculous, and will detract from any other GOTY votes we may come up with for this year later.

But hey, suit yourselves. I'm not going to vote in this thread.

My sense is that this thread is much like the July 4th version that ATB posts every year...or that someone starts on his behalf. It isn't about locking in final votes yet -- it's about having people think back on what they've played over the last several months, while things are still fresh, and consider all their choices before the end of the year.

For example, Bravely Default came out back in February. It would be easy to forget now, in a season packed with blockbusters like GTA V and Dragon Age: Inquisition, that it was one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. It's certainly my sleeper hit of the year, a strong contender for my personal GOTY, and bi-annual threads like this help keep it in mind.

I hope you do decide to participate in this thread: I think reading about the experiences that have stuck with other people is a great way to get some perspective on the whole year, and maybe even pick up on some games that slipped under your radar at release.

I decided to get it for the ps4. It took me over two hours to play through the "introduction" and get to the title screen. Hysterical. If I continue on at this pace, from what I'm hearing relating to overall content, I may not finish this game until Easter 2015.

Two hours? Wow.

I doubt it took me 30 minutes to get to that point.

I know, right? I laugh at myself, as I would imagine the average gamer gets through it in like 20 minutes. Although that includes character creation, which probably accounted for a lot of that time.

Same here. The trouble is that the character creation takes place under different lighting conditions than the actual game, so I'll make a character that looks just right, walk outside into the snowy sunlight, and recoil in horror at the monstrosity I've introduced into the world of Thedas. I've gone through that little prologue section at least five or six times now just trying to craft a character I won't hate looking at for the next four dozen hours. :p

I had the same problem with Dragon Age: Origins, too. That's why I had to manually recreate so much of my story for the Keep -- Origin apparently remembers a dozen marginally different versions of my character, and I couldn't figure out which one I used to complete the game.

Incidentally, I did try the command line fix to address the hitchy cutscenes, but couldn't really discern a difference. It's so odd: all the gameplay and exploration sections run at a solid 60 fps on Ultra-everything but the cutscenes look more like low-20s. My memory is that Dragon Age 2 has similar issues when it first came out, and things were eventually patched up to perfection.

About how early does Green Man Gaming release pre-order keys, or does it vary from game to game? I've got Far Cry 4 pre-ordered and I'm trying to figure out when I should be checking for a key to start the pre-loading.

I know this answer is coming a little late, but keys from Green Man Gaming are *usually* delivered at the same time that you'd get them directly from the publisher. My keys for Civilization: Beyond Earth and Dragon Age: Inquisition were both available several days prior to release so I had ample time to get them completely preloaded.

There have been rare exceptions where publishers simply didn't provide GMG enough keys to fulfill all of their presales. It's usually been resolved within a day or two, early enough to complete the preload anyway.

Finally, it isn't uncommon for your key to be available quite a bit before you get the e-mail notification. If you see reports of other people preloading, log into your GMG account and check the "Games" section of your profile -- you may find your key is there and ready for registration even if you've haven't been e-mailed.

interesting crawley what res are you at? I play 1680x1050 on ultra with an i7 and a 770 with 2gbram, 8 system ram and it all runs smooth at about 35.

I'm seeing the same thing as Crawley: the gameplay runs flawlessly on my GeForce 780 with the newest drivers, but for some reason the in-engine cutscenes that start the game off are significantly more hitchy.

A quick Google search suggests that the symptom is caused by a framerate cap that's built into the game. This Reddit user uncovered a command line fix that seems to fix the problem, and at least one Bioware employee has retweeted it as a temporary solution.

Quote from: CommandBen

Origin Method:

Step 1: Boot up Origin

Step 2: Right Click on Dragon Age: Inquisition and select Game Properties

Step 3: Paste

-GameTime.MaxSimFps 60 -GameTime.ForceSimRate 60+

Step 4: Click Ok then Click Play and Enjoy!

The downside is that this desynchronizes the multiplayer component, but I'll just remember to remove the command line when I'm ready to play that. I'll give this a shot to see how it runs and report back....

Good call. Ubisoft games always seem primed for immediate price drops, sometimes within just a couple weeks of release. Far Cry 4 will probably be available for half price between now and whenever you're ready to play.

I'm doing the same thing. Between Dragon Age: Inquisition, GTA V, and Assassin's Creed Unity waiting in the wings, I wouldn't have time to try out Far Cry 4 before Christmas anyhow.

This weekend, I replayed the first 3 missions of the PS3 version because I wanted to have a good perspective on how the new version compared. I also remember feeling overwhelmed by how sophisticated the controls were, especially when so much of the tutorial tips are popping up while you're dodging bullets.

I popped in the PS4 version this afternoon to try playing the same sequence, but within just a few minutes, the picture turned all blurry and wavery. It was impossible to see what was happening. I went to check the cables and realized that the display was fine -- the trouble was that I was crying.

What was wrong with me that I'd willingly subjected myself to that PS3 version for more than a few seconds? Was my time so worthless that I could actually spend an hour squinting at a 720p screen and trying to figure out if that jaggy blur was an oncoming vehicle or a park bench? And what was I going to do when I eventually finished the game and had to go back to looking at things that weren't GTA V HD?

Even this forum...God, I can't stand to look at these pixelated letters any more! Everything sucks so hard now THE REAL WORLD IS RUINED FOREVER

By the way, in the latest Jumping the Shark podcast, Todd Brakke remarked that Dragon Age Keep will not automatically import any of your plot-related decisions. It will pull in some of your Achievements and stuff depending on what you've synced with your Bioware / Origin accounts, but you'll always need to go through the "tapestry" mode to recreate your world state.

I'd made a comment earlier about importing some of my decisions from an old save, but since I haven't actually tried it for myself, I wanted to mention that I probably can't do that.

Have you decided what sort of character you're going to play? Is there a canonical Gratch in the world of Thedas?

I've actually been having a great time with the PC version of Watch Dogs. It seemed neat on the PS4, but installing the PC mod to restore the original E3 2012 post-processing effects elevates the experience to a whole new level.

The publisher says that the problem with players falling through the ground, crashes related to co-op, delays in the main menu loading, and Arno getting stuck inside hay carts are slated to be addressed first. The development team is also investigating frame rate problems, graphics issues (like the disappearing faces), matchmaking issues, and problems related to the game's in-app, real money transactions.

No ETA, but the article also links to Ubisoft's liveblog where they're collecting information and posting updates on known and addressed issues.

I'm not surprised the PC version is a bit dodgy. Like I was saying earlier in the thread, Ubisoft's ports are always about 85% of the way towards being great before they toss it out the door and start aggregating bug reports to figure out the remainder. I still went with the PC version because eventually they patch it into the definitive version.

I am *very* surprised the PS4 and XB1 versions are such a mess. Unity is new-gen only, meaning they could focus all their resources on two closed platforms with similar architectures, and I think the plummeting stock price shows just how important their yearly Assassin's Creed is to Ubisoft's bottom line. They combine the work of hundreds of people from multiple studios, coordinating on cycle they've worked out over the course of several years, so this sort of slapdash outcome is kind of amazing.

I have never had a problem with any game running in Origin. My one encounter with their technical support occurred when I was trying to register my copy of The Sims 2 to unlock the Sims 2 Ultimate Edition, and they had the issue solved in minutes.

Like Steam, Origin also allows you to back up an installed game to an external hard drive, so you won't need to re-download the whole thing again in the future. This is a big plus for me, and the primary reason why I avoid purchasing games through Ubisoft's Uplay store.

I've pre-ordered Inquisition through Origin thanks to GreenManGaming's 20% discount, and I'd feel very comfortable recommending the same course of action to any other PC players.

In other news, Game Informer has posted two separate Test Chambers for Inquisition. The first one appears to be a straight run through the first 45-minutes of the game, while the second looks like a more general overview of different areas and game play systems.

Yeah, Gratch, Dragon Age: Keep is kind of a "reenactment" tool to let people setup their worldstate for Inquisition. It can apparently import many of your decisions if you can show it a save game through the old Bioware Social site, but it's mostly a Choose Your Own Adventure way to recreate your exploits for the new generation.

Check out the site that forgeforsaken linked and you have everything in place for Tuesday!

Origins was such a great game! It can be quite challenging, even at the 'Normal' difficulty, but once you understand that it's one of the rare RPGs that expects you to actively spend your gold on armor sets and items, it's incredibly satisfying.

The expansion pack is less evenly balanced, with your characters gaining access to equipment and skills that effectively make them invulnerable death gods. It's still a good time though, and the "Stone Prisoner" DLC pack for the base game should be considered an essential part of the package.

The missions have little hand-holding, and youíre often expected to think creatively and solve problems on the fly. It makes this the most challenging Assassinís Creed title by a wide margin, and itís easy to get frustrated. The higher difficulty is pervasive, including in the newly revamped approach to stealth. Guards are far more aware than in previous games, and even new stealth options are rarely enough to keep anyone fooled for long. The combat system values punishment over communicating a sense of power; I like the increased need for observation in fights, and the expectation that I use all the tools at my disposal. However, the absence of reliable counters to devastating ranged shots is infuriating, and sometimes there are just too many enemies to understand whatís happening on screen.

I will be very interested to try this out for myself. Based solely on this description, it sounds like exactly what I've wanted from the Assassin's Creed franchise for a long time: a sense of danger to the combat. Even Brotherhood, which did combat flow better than any entry before or since, was more about slaying with style than fighting for your life.

On a side note, Miller scored Assassin's Creed: Rogue (8.25) a notch higher than Unity (8.0) and wrote:

Quote from: Matt Miller

For players trying to figure out which game to tackle first when two Assassinís Creed games release on the same day this year, the answer is to start here. Shayís story closes a number of story loops left behind on the American front of the Templar/Assassin conflict, and offers a crucial first step into the new European theater of war. Rogue proves why itís time for the franchise to chart some new territory, but leaves no doubt about why we fell in love in the first place.

I was considering waiting for the PC version in January, but with that Target B2G1 free sale still going on....

So, what's the story with this 15-gig Day 1 patch for the Master Chief Collection? Is it possible to interrupt this for the sake of playing the campaigns, or is it basically locked down until finished?

So why is it that you can go out and buy/download a copy of this right now and play, and yet reviews can't be posted until noon EST? Why on earth would a review site agree to this?

The alternative is that Ubisoft does not provide your outlet with a review build, you go out and buy/download a copy of this today to play, and your review shows up several days later than the review sites that agreed to the embargo.

It's ultimately a pretty small issue. People who were inclined to wait for reviews will still do so, while those of us who have been conditioned to thirst for throat-stabbing parkour every November will be rolling the dice with our preloaded copies.

Yeah, even under embargo, Polygon's Phil Kollar was hinting pretty openly that Inquisition is the real deal. Lots of "I can't say what I think of the new Dragon Age yet, but if you could only afford one of the big releases this fall..."

I guess I'm going to have to get things rolling in Dragon Age: Keep this week. I still have my post-expansion save from Origins so hopefully I can get it to import some of my decisions from that.

Then I'll find out how the decision making for the Dragon Age 2 timeline goes. I never finished that game, preferring instead to put the disc in my microwave for several seconds. Does anyone know if there's a series of choices you can make that result in all of Hawke's friends suddenly realizing that she's an irredeemable scumbag, taking back all the things she stole from them during the main plot of the game, and leaving her penniless and alone on the incredibly ugly streets of Kirkwall?

FYI: Target is advertising a $30 credit towards GTA V on PS4 / XB1 with the trade-in of the PS3 / 360 version. I know a lot of people are double-dipping on that one, so it's a great deal if you still have that last-gen version kicking around.

I'm planning to pick up Assassin's Creed: Unity, though I'm still torn on whether to go with the PC or PS4 edition. I suspect the PC version would look noticeably better, but Ubisoft's ports always have some weird optimization quirk where they run like crap unless you click the icon with your left foot.

Also Lego Batman 3 because the second game was one of my favorite entries in the whole franchise.

Is Assassin's Creed: Rogue supposed to be any good, or did Ubisoft pawn that off on the D-team that made Liberation?

So I gave this another shot this weekend, and it has finally started to click. While I still find myself frustrated as hell at times, I'm having far more fun than I was expecting. A couple stupid questions:

1. How do I tell my what my Power level is? The Captains I'm fighting are anywhere from Power level 5 to Power level 20, but I have no idea how that compares with my level.

Talion doesn't really have a Power Level of his own. The closest equivalent would probably be the number of skill points you've put into his trees, except that doesn't take into account the upgrades you've purchased for his weapons or the runes you've equipped.

It's also important to remember that an enemy with a high Power Level isn't necessarily harder to beat. A captain with a weakness for stealth attacks can be slain in one hit whether he's rated as a 5 or a 15, but the higher his level is, the more carefully you'll need to plan your approach.

Quote from: Gratch on November 09, 2014, 08:02:43 PM

2. There's one Boss that has killed me multiple times, and has gotten promoted through a number of other events. I've run across him a couple times in the field now, and he's to the point where he can kill me with one shot (and did so twice in the last hour). Am I just better off running like hell every time I see him until I get stronger? Or have I created an unstoppable monster because he's killed me so many times?

An uruk named Brogg the Skinless must have killed Talion seven or eight times in my game, catapulting him from a rank-and-file grunt to an elite body guard for one of the warchiefs. He had the most unnerving habit of showing up at all the worst times. I turned tail and elf-sped my way to safety on more than one occasion -- a cowardice Brogg just *loved* to taunt me about -- and believe me: it made it all the more satisfying when I finally took him down.

No one is unkillable. If you can't take your nemesis now, keep your distance and train for a while until you're ready. Then pick the fight on your own terms, when you can leverage his fears and weaknesses against him.

Quote from: Gratch on November 09, 2014, 08:02:43 PM

3. I may have asked this before (apologies if so), but what are the "must have" skills? I have 5-6 skill points saved up because wanted to get some of the skills at the next level, but I can't decide which is the best route to go.

You'll almost certainly have every skill unlocked by the end of the game, so I highly recommend spending your skill points and Mirian on attribute upgrades as soon as possible. Don't forget to "sell" lower-level runes for extra Mirian as you unlock higher level versions, too -- there's no value to keeping a Level 7 "Rain of Arrows" rune if you also have a Level 14 version.

I thought all of the skills were useful throughout the game. A few that stood out to me were:

- the dodge-stun, allowing Talion to automatically daze an enemy when he rolls over them. This removes them from combat for a few seconds, can easily be chained across multiple enemies in a row, and sets them up for a flurry attack that adds several hits to your combo meter.

- combo multiplier skills, including the ones that double / triple the benefit of critical hits, and the one that lowers the threshold for special attacks from x8 to x5. All of these allow you to perform executions, group stuns, and fire arrow attacks more frequently.

- the fire arrow, which turns out to be an invaluable ability for incinerating large crowds of enemies with exploding camp fires. It's also super useful when facing captains with a fear of fire.

- shadow step and shadow kill, which teleport Talion to any enemy he can see. You'll be amazed at how much faster stealthy infiltrations are when you can blip from one tower to the next before the guard's corpses hit the floor.

- finally, any abilities that increase your store of elf shot, lengthen your focus timer, or give you new ways to regenerate those resources are worth checking out. I feel like a lot of people underestimate the potency of Mordor's ranged combat in the middle of a brawl, but stopping time and instantly slaying eight guys turns out to be a great way to win a fight.

I don't see the big deal. The last few years when you play a ubisoft game via steam, it would just take you to Uplay, and then you'd have to click on play once more to get it to run. Now it's one less step.

I recently bought Wolfenstein: The New Order on Steam. It has about a 40-gig install footprint, so I downloaded it in advance and archived it to an external hard drive. Now I can reinstall it in a matter of minutes whenever I'm ready to play.

That still isn't an option with uPlay. You can sometimes fake it by copying the game files out of the installation directory, but some games can't be restored that way. Redownloading a 50-gig game like AC: Unity is a long and irritating hurdle, especially when services like Steam and Origin have solved the problem.

What happened with inFamous: Second Son? Did you finish the game with Good Karma or did that new system update brick your console?

And have you tried playing Final Fantasy XIV on the PS4 yet? I'm curious how it handles.

Quote from: YellowKing on October 31, 2014, 07:28:28 PM

If I cave and buy Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition I may dabble in that just to change things up a bit.

I waited for sales on the enhanced editions of Baldur's Gate I & II, but I picked up Icewind Dale: EE right on release day and immediately jumped on the character creation treadmill. This new version has lots of added character kits, so in place of rolling up a regular thief, you can opt for a more specialized build like "assassin" or "shadow dancer."

- Offering an XB1, without Kinect, and bundled with Sunset Overdrive for $350. That's one of the few exclusives I'm sincerely interested in.

- Doing so just before the release of the Halo: Master Chief Collection. Another major exclusive that was always tempting me towards the console. I thought Halo 4 already looked astoundingly good on the 360, so if 343 Studios can unify the entire series with that degree of fidelity....

- I was already planning to buy an XB1 controller for use with my PC. Using the one that comes with the console instead will cost nothing more than a long USB micro cable, effectively saving me an additional $55.

- This is all happening just as Best Buy offers an enormous price cut on their Gamers Club Unlocked membership. Bullwinkle took the time to put up a detailed explanation here, but the short version is that I'll be able to buy any new XB1 games for 20%-off through the next year.

If there will ever be a better time down the road to pick up this console, I can't imagine what it would be. I think I'm finally sold.

Speaking of Eco-Logic, I'm curious how people feel about the increasingly provocative line of signatures he's been using these last several weeks.

The first one I noticed was a broadcast that anyone who wanted Governor Rick Perry to resign was "part of the problem." Just after the first report of an Ebola outbreak, he changed it to a warning that President Obama is acting against our best interests. That apparently didn't get the reaction he wanted, so the updated and current version reads:

Quote from: Eco-Logic

This signature is not personal, at all. If you're not awake enough to realize our country is being taken down by an organized effort from a puppet chimp being controlled by a movement older than me. Wake the freaking fack up.

I cannot think of anyone else on the forum who would be so classless as to spam every single post they make -- again -- with their shrill political agenda. However, if someone did, other people would at least have the option to open a thread in Politics & Religion where a frank exchange of ideas would not derail the 'What Are You Buying This Week?' thread. We don't have that option with Eco-Logic since he was banned from the P&R board for repeatedly telling everyone to fuck off every time he left GamingTrend forever.

Outside of his signature, I have not seen any examples of Eco-Logic trying to key people up. He's clearly capable of contributing to the community in positive ways, yet occasionally, randomly, chooses not to do so. That's why I'm not calling for any specific action here, as I have no idea what to even recommend, but I'm interested to hear what others think.

I never think to use the bow in the middle of a melee skirmish, but I saw that the fire shot requires that, so I guess it's a thing.

Yeah, Elfshot is the most reliable threat management resource in the game. It's guaranteed to take 3 - 5 enemies out of the encounter while simultaneously charging up your combo meter for a finisher of your choice. And that's before you add runes that heal you, restore focus, and terrify orcs with every headshot.

It sounds overpowered, but it's also finite enough that you have to use it wisely and mix in plenty of other combat moves to survive. The combat in this game is pretty great!

I like this game, but I am seriously terrible at it. Which is odd, as I never really had much trouble with the AC games. It's a little frustrating that anytime you get spotted, you're immediately surrounded by a dozen enemies. I haven't been able to get the hang of combat yet, and I'm afraid I'm going to break the game with the number of Orcs that are getting promoted because they killed me.

Assuming you're playing on the PS4, tapping the 'X' button to roll over an enemy is a fantastic way to avoid damage while you reposition for some breathing room. Melee and ranged attacks will almost always miss, you'll keep your combo going, and you can do it multiple times to work your way towards the edge of a crowd if needed.

Your priority targets should be archers and skirmishers -- the orks with the javelins. They like to stay near the periphery of a fight and ruin your combat flow with unblockable ranged attacks. Use your own bow to return the favor: your Focus ability slows time to a crawl, giving you plenty of time to line up one or two charged headshots and take them out the fight immediately. Their weaponry also glows red in the wraith world, making them easy to pick them out in a group.